


when i'm with you it's alright, i know it's right

by bothsexuals



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Feelings Realization, M/M, Pining, abed loves troy was the working title of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23929045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bothsexuals/pseuds/bothsexuals
Summary: Abed realizes he's more in love with his best friend than originally planned.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 29
Kudos: 329





	when i'm with you it's alright, i know it's right

**Author's Note:**

> I have watched a season and a half of Community so far. I got a dumb idea and then this happened. 
> 
> This fic is kind of dedicated to my best friend Jana, not because she watches Community or anything, but because I love her and I put a mention of Star Trek for her and used one of our songs for the title ("Songbird" by Fleetwood Mac").
> 
> Enjoy!

"Good study sesh, everybody," Jeff said, standing up and collecting his books, "same place tomorrow?" 

"Aye aye, captain," Britta dead-panned and hooked arms with Shirley. 

Annie gravitated towards Abed as everyone left the room except for them and Troy, who was still putting his books in his backpack. 

Abed dutifully nodded as she told him about some project she had to do that she thought he might help with, offering donuts in return for his help. 

"I would have agreed without donuts," he said, shaking her hand to seal the deal. 

"Oh-" she started, but he interrupted her. 

"Now I want donuts," he stated, and she nodded, deeming it fair. 

"Abed," Troy caught his attention, walking towards the pair, his voice soft as ever. 

Abed's eyes darted to him at once.

"Yes?" 

"Here," Troy said, handing him a pack of his favorite candy. 

Abed smiled a rare, precious smile, which Troy couldn’t help but return. It disappeared a second later, turning into a confused frown.

"Why are you giving me these?" he asked with a slight tilt of his head.

Troy shrugged and flashed him a sweet smile. 

"Just ‘cause. See you later, man," he said, and raised his hands for their handshake, then waved goodbye to Annie, and walked out of the room. 

Abed's eyes followed him as he left, while Annie still stood at his side, looking at him expectantly. Once Troy was out of sight, Abed's brows furrowed again. 

"I think I might be more in love with my best friend than originally planned," he said, and the only person able to notice the slight tinge of worry in his voice would have been Troy. 

Annie's eyes widened and her mouth opened in one of her signature gasps. Abed turned towards her, his face back to neutral, then shrugged and walked away as she wordlessly gaped at him.  


  


***

  


Abed had a couple hours of Troy-less lessons to think over his recent revelation. He found that his usually well organized mind felt confused, and his thoughts appeared to him as messy rather than neat and clear. Weird.

He turned to a blank page on his notebook, deciding that figuring this out was more important than whatever half-assed lecture the teacher was giving. He started writing. 

**Possible positive outcomes:**

\- More time with Troy  
\- Exploring more of the romantic genre  
\- Reenacting iconic romantic scenes  
\- Subverting the usual bromance trope  
\- Kissing Troy  
\- Going to Pride? (research if cosplay is cool there)

**Possible negative outcomes:**

\- Pierce finally snaps and murders us

He paused, clenching his jaw as he hesitated to write down the thing that scared him most. 

\- Losing Troy

Okay, so Abed could admit that specific outcome was sort of terrifying to him. 

Troy had been a wonderful, surprising _plot twist_ in Abed’s life. He was used to people not understanding him, thinking he was weird; he was used to being on the receiving end of odd, confused looks. But with Troy, it was different. He understood him more than anyone ever had, and even when he didn’t his confused looks were always filled with interest and eagerness to get to know another little part of Abed. It was thrilling to have a friend like him, always willing to go along with Abed’s plans, and coming up with equally genius ones on his own. 

Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t imagine a universe in which he _didn’t_ fall in love with Troy. 

And now that he thought about it, perhaps Troy felt the same way. 

The theory checked out: he had caught Troy staring at him when he thought Abed wasn’t looking, he had heard his heart speed up slightly as he rested his head on Troy’s shoulder, he had felt Troy’s hand seek out his own more often than conventionally appropriate (at least according to their study group, Abed thought it was cool).

But he had also heard Troy reaffirm his heterosexuality more often than anyone else in their group. Which, he reasoned, might just be more proof of the fact that he _wasn’t_ straight, but trying to convince others and, more importantly, himself that he was. That might have had to do with his family, or societal conventions, or Shirley and Pierce’s way too frequent casual homophobia. 

Abed sighed. He didn’t want to push Troy into something he wasn’t comfortable with yet, and he thought his friend deserved to figure himself out at his own pace. 

The bell rang and he closed his notebook, carefully collected his books and left the classroom. He only had another lesson before he was supposed to meet up with Troy, but he sped up slightly when he saw him only a few metres away in the corridor, likely on his way to the library.

“Troy," he called when he was close enough for his best friend to hear him. 

Troy turned towards him and Abed made a mental note of how his eyes seemed to light up and his mouth instinctively curved into a toothy grin, more proof in favor of his theory. 

“Abed,” he said, and Abed also noted how soft his voice sounded, and how that made his own heart jump a little, “what’s up?” 

“Just wanted to say hi before going to class, ” Abed said with a shy, tilted smirk, “so… hi.” 

He gave a stiff wave of his hand and Troy laughed. 

Abed added another note to his mental catalogue: _Troy’s laugh was apparently one of his favorite sounds in the world._

“Hey, man, ” Troy returned the greeting then urged him, “Go, you’ll be late for class. I’ll wait for you in the library, and then we can watch some Star Trek!” 

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool," Abed mumbled, making one final note:

_Troy made him smile more than anyone else._

They separated after doing their usual handshake, and Abed started heading towards his last class of the day. 

As he instinctively turned to catch another glance of Troy walking away in what he realized was typical romantic movie fashion, he smiled and felt an unexpected sense of calm.

He was in love with his best friend, and, according to his usually very reliable research, his best friend almost certainly felt the same way, despite possibly not having figured it out yet. 

Abed was okay with waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked this; if you did, please leave a comment and/or kudos, it absolutely makes my day.


End file.
